Regional Dare to Share Forum on Sustainable Natural Resource Management
in Central Asia took place on 1-2 November 2012 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The
forum gathered representatives from the national governments, ministries and
research institutes of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan, as well as the representatives of international agencies such as UNDP,
UNCCD Secretariat, the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD,FAOSEC, GIZ, World Bank and others, to
examine the challenges associated with donor activities on natural resource
management and to showcase best practices and lessons learned from the projects
implemented in Central Asia.

The Dare to Share Forum summarized the experience and assets of the
first phase of Central Asian Countries Initiative on Sustainable Land Management (CACILM) and discussed new opportunities for regional cooperation on
sustainable natural resources management in Central Asia. Two-day forum
included discussions with the national and international experts on different
aspects of water resource management, climate change and forest and pasture
management in the region and showcasing both the challenges of the problem and
the best practices of combating it.

During the period of 2007-2012 the CACILM multi country programme has
been joining under its umbrella the number of national and multicountry
projects in Central Asia which accumulated wealth of institutional and
practical knowledge. Twenty four CACILM SLMpractices were selected, documented in and put into the WOCAT database.

The Forum was organized in the framework of CACILM Multi-Country
Capacity Building Project administrated by UNDP with the support of GIZ and the
government of Republic of Kazakhstan. The Multi Country Capacity Building project is
one of four related multi-country support projects under the regional umbrella
of CACILM by contributing the system, institutional, and individual capacities
needed to respond to country barriers in terms of an inconsistent and
divergent policy environment, inadequate and inefficient resources to combat
SLM, gaps in human capital to develop SLM programs, and a disconnect between
project level successes and policy making.

The project provided support to the Central Asian countries in alignment
of the National Action Programme to Combat Desertification and development of
the national Integrated Financial Strategy with consultation of the Global
Mechanism of the UNCCD.